The wearable defibrillator consists of a monitor and a vest (or belt) which are both worn by the patient. The device monitors the patient's ECG with sensing electrodes, such as 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, to detect life-threatening arrhythmias and delivers a cardioverting or defibrillating shock through therapy pads, such as 18, if treatment is needed.
There is also a third piece of equipment called the battery charger that can provide two functionalities: first it can charge the monitor batteries, 41, and second it can provide a gateway for the monitor to download data to a central server. The monitor can communicate to the charger through a wireless Bluetooth link and the charger can connect to a central server through the internet.
The accelerometer(s) can allow for the computer in the wearable defibrillator to determine the position of the monitor, belt and/or patient, and the corresponding applied forces. This information can be used in a confidence based arrhythmia detection algorithm to accelerate the timing to hasten the occurrence of or hold off therapy based on past and present body motion and/or position history.
Other devices that could be used instead of an accelerometer would include, but are not limited to: gyroscope, magnetometer, hall-effect devices, and other force motion or position sensors.